All contents related to 2021 CCHU9034 course are placed and archive here.

Category: 2021 Blog

Cat Links Lecture 8 Sci-Fi Technoscapes, Uncategorized

READING RESPONSE: Prakash, Gyan

Posted on u3536247

Tokyo has a history of 500 years. During this short time, the city that has been destroyed and rebuilt in almost every century of its existence. The city has been ravaged by atomic bombs and fire. Tokyo is now a symbol of technological advance and order. The sterile yet bustling creative city seems like an anachronism in its paradoxy. Japanese art is distinguished from other nations art. There is a theme of violence and monster- as seen in mangas, anime, and paintings. Murakami Takashi, a Japanese sociologist explains this phenomena. Art is often a reflection of society, and the art

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Cat Links Lecture 5 Urban Infrastructure as Event, Uncategorized

READING RESPONSE: Robert Chi

Posted on u3536247

Robert Chi in his writing analyzes the Hong Kong Cinema’s ideologeme. Hong Kong’s cinema has been active since the 1910s. Hong Kong was at the front of cinematic technologies as it was the trading hub of cultures and businesses. It is remarkable how active the film industry was before the 1980s. Given the small scale of land, the amount of films produced here is staggering as compared to China’s from 1930-1980: 6,000 and 2,800 respectively. Film companies were mainly based in Hong Kong and Shanghai during this period. However, due to the freedom of expression in Hong Kong, actors and

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Cat Links Lecture 1 Architecture, Film & the Modern City

READING RESPONSE: Roland Barthes

Posted on u3536247

Roland Barthes describes the cinematic experience in his book The Rustle of Language. Powerful imagery is used as he equates the cinematic experience to hypnosis. I agree with Barthes that there is something magical about movie theaters. Movie Theaters have been designed to maximize the cinematic experience for the audience. Some tangible elements are loud speakers, the absence of light, silence, and the large screens all add to the experience. I was quite taken by this essay. Barthes ponders the reason why the cinema provides a sense of privacy and anonymity. While consuming the medium of theatre and films, the

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Cat Links 2021 Blog, Lecture 9 Global Space, Time & Architecture

[Reading Response] Ackbar Abbas

Posted on Skyler

Abbas gave us a perspective to see the disappearance of cities’ identity, that the hyperlegibility of the city is precisely what makes it invisible. The generic city is created in this way, being complex with anomalies but without unique qualities. As hyperlegible golos reduce the city to a single icon among many similar icons and the city’s image being dulled, the city may consider constructing the landscape in a “glocalized” way rather than paying for foreign star architects and the image of the city in their eyes (which is often out of date). The mean of attracting tourists can as

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Cat Links 2021 Blog, Lecture 9 Global Space, Time & Architecture

Reading Response: Ackbar Abbas

Posted on u3572921

Abbas talks about Generic cities and explains their characteristics by discussing different cities from different films. He claims that the film is a response to Hong Kong as a generic city. However, if I were to define Hong Kong, based on my experience, I would say it is a half-generic city. Abbas says that a generic city is one without history, like Hollywood, so that it can easily create new identities. I think Hong Kong has a strong identity that cannot be changed. The British occupation did influence Hong Kong greatly, and the city is very unlike other Chinese cities.

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Cat Links 2021 Blog, Lecture 8 Sci-Fi Technoscapes

Reading Response: Carl Abbott

Posted on u3572921

The idea of a migratory or mobile city is commonly used in science fiction. There are various kinds of migratory cities, which Carl Abbott explains with examples from various films. Abbott explains the plot of the films and how these cities came to exist in the stories. I learned a lot and agree with him on most of the points he makes about different types of migratory cities. However, I partially disagree with him when he discusses the Snowpiercer. He discusses how it lacks interaction with the outer world and is too small. While I agree that the train lacks

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Cat Links Lecture 9 Global Space, Time & Architecture

[Reading Response] Ackbar Abbas

Posted on u3560664

I agree with Abbas. The image of our city is crafted by money instead of the city itself, and it presents an absents of characters because they are designed for a “brand” or an icon instead of showing the real side of the city. It makes the city invisible to the people. At the same time, I think that it is also hard to argue whether it represents Hong Kong, all those Generic City images may be intentional, globalization and internet leading us from difference to similarity. For me, the image of Hong Kong crafted by the government shows the

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Cat Links FINAL VIDEO ESSAY

[Video Essay] Clean City

Posted on yi2001

Transcript Theme The outbreak of COVID-19 is undoubtedly a worldwide disaster. Although the pandemic in Hangzhou, where I am now living, is not as serious as that in Hong Kong, the prevention and control of the pandemic was once the focus of the government’s work. A dirty and messy city is undoubtedly more suitable for the spread of the virus than a clean city, so creating a “clean city” should always be our goal. Through the research and analysis of the garbage stations in different housing estates in Hangzhou, I hope to know what efforts the city has made to make the

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Cat Links Lecture 9 Global Space, Time & Architecture

[Reading Response] Ackbar Abbas

Posted on soniawsy

Cities are trying to boost their tourist trade by using branding strategies that make them more unforgettable and attractive, but they are one of the reasons for cities becoming “Generic Cities”. Cities would spend millions of dollars to build up their brand, which cost them their uniqueness, like their culture, their history, or their identity. This can be reflected through the generic cities’ representations in cinematic images. For example, in Hollywood films, most cities in Asia are now seen and represented as rich cities. I have discovered that in different films or television shows when people mention Hong Kong or

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Cat Links 2021 Blog, Lecture 8 Sci-Fi Technoscapes

[Reading Response] M. Christine Boyer

Posted on soniawsy

Boyer has mentioned the point of CyberCities, how different aspects of cities are being replaced and controlled by computer technology, and I think this is becoming the new reality day by day. Like the argument mentioned in the reading, “electronic telecommunications have so reformulated our perception of space and time that we experience a loss of spatial boundaries, of spacial distinctions.”, since the beginning of the pandemic, our normal lives have been moved online and became virtual. People were used to going to school or to work or to gatherings in person, but because of the virus, people were forced

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